t’s very exciting that we have released our Ecommerce package. Before Lynx Ecommerce we only offered our web import module which does a great job of importing web orders – but we wanted more. We wanted a system that would:

Allow your subscribers to review their subscription and view their status, expire date and payment status without having to call you.

We wanted subscribers to be able to renew their subscriptions 24/7 without taking up your customer service time.

We wanted subscribers to be able to make a payment for an order, even if ordered by mail or phone.

We wanted subscribers to be able to make their own name and address changes.

We also wanted donors to be able to manage their gift subscriptions, and Group Billing Masters to be able to manage their groupsincluding renewing selected subscribers as well as name and address changes. All without your help.

We wanted an easy way for subscribers to report lost or stolen issues and deal with other customer service issues as well as suggest articles and communicate to the editor.

We wanted a way for subscribers to have “Subscriber Only” areas and downloads which can support multiple levels of membership like Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

We wanted a way for you to offer opt-in email for multiple free newsletters to attract prospects as well as edit and send the email on your website via a built-in autoresponder to aid in the creating of relationships.

We also wanted users to be able to order non-subscription products like back issues, T-Shirts, special reports and be able to subscribe to access to special data areas.

We want your subscribers to be able to donate to multiple causes (if appropriate).

We wanted to ability to manage email campaigns based on the subscribers’ expire date.

And we did all of that and more!

Here’s the way it works. You receive a subscription in the mail. It’s entered into First Edition, then at a cycle you select, the order migrates to your website via our new LynxSync. LynxSync assigns the new subscriber a username and password which is optionally emailed to your subscriber with your welcome message. He can then log on to your web site and enjoy all the privileges mentioned in my list above.

Or, when a new subscriber subscribes from your web site (rather than through the mail), she chooses her user name and password, pays through one of our 50 plus payment gateways which is then deposited directly into your bank. Then the new “Pending” status order migrates, via LynxSync from the web to First Edition on your desktop, where, based on your business rules, the order is imported as a new First Edition subscription (or renewal or payment or change of address). And since new orders always migrate to the web, this new order also migrates back with its new status and expire date. Data synchronizations can occur hourly, daily, weekly, or at any interval you want.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we determined that a far better approach was to use an existing open source framework that lent itself to both subscriptions and custom programming. A system that has great username/password security, exceptional content management, and offered advanced SEO (Search Engine Optimization). After many tests of open source frameworks like Drupal, Word Press, Zope and Joomla, we finally settled on DotNetNuke (DNN), a Microsoft based framework using Microsoft’s membership roles for security and Microsoft SQL Server as its database engine. It’s fully programmable and has over 575,000 registered users. As an example, TV Guide chose DotNetNuke for their website.

DNN is a world class framework, supported not only by Lynx Media, but by DNNs’ core team, user groups, online forums, resource portals and a network of companies who specialize in DNN. DotNetNuke utilizes cutting edge technology like ASP.Net, Visual Studio, Microsoft SQL Server, and IIS. DNN can also be easily localized for multi-language support, and hundreds of developers offer third party modules for almost any need while a huge number of talented designers offer thousands of inexpensive DNN skins (look and feel plug-ins) that can create beautiful, award winning websites.

DNN enjoys a very active support group and hundreds of designers and programmers who specialize in DNN. It’s powerful – allowing multiple – portals (multi-publication) from a single install. It includes world class content management while hundreds of third party modules are also available. These include RSS, news ticklers, document/news articles management and archiving, classified ads, events, announcements, YouTube viewers, image galleries, email/newsletter management, SEO management and marketing, , Goggle Ad Sense and Analytics, testimonials, job listings, business directories, banner management and much more.

Since management and page production is handled through a web browser, there is no need for in-house programmers or knowledge of HTML or FTP. The management of articles can be achieved by writers in remote locations, viewable by only the editor and the writer until approved for publication.

We’ve also tested hundred of 3rd party modules and have invested in master license purchases so as to offer our clients the best of class modules as part of a Lynx Media package. And to this, we’ve added our on Subscriber Services web programs (new orders, renewing, payments, customer service, etc.) which uses the latest technologies (such as Ajax) along with our LynxSync to keep your website and First Edition databases synchronized.

Our shopping cart supports almost any product type and includes support for recurring subscriptions, assignment of roles, and the download of electronic product. It supports more than 50 payment gateways from Pay Pal (standard and pro) to Authorize.net, from 2CheckOut to Verisign Payflow, from WorldPay to Protx, as well as manual (off-line) credit card processing. It supports unlimited ship-to addresses, with tax zones, real-time rate calculations for USPS, FedEx, Airborne, and DHL and even has customer wish lists.

All in all, we feel this is destined to be the one of the very best solutions available for publishers’ websites. Now if you would like to take a look at a web demo, then send me an email at len@lynxmedia.com, or call me at 1-800-451-5969 ext 107.

Since our beginning in 1987, Lynx Media has specialized in subscription management.

LynxSync which syncs up your webiste with your First Edition database as well as synch web orders to your First Edition Database. First time synch can assigned temporary user name/password which can be automatically emailed to subscriber.

Subscriber web orders and renewals.

View my subscriptions and payments.

Subscriber self service of name/address management, ship to address, and snowbird address.

Donor self-management of gifts and groups, with the ability to view doner/group members and renew them on site.

Subscriber payments.

Vacation Suspend

Vacation Addresses (Snowbird)

Customer service feedback email for dup copies, torn/missing issues, letter to the editor.

Event view to view and manage log files with optional notification of exceptions by email.

Built-in scheuduler for recurring events such as newsletter or email sending.

Redirects users who are not yet registered to [login/register] page if they try to checkout

Lynx Ecommerce comes setup with a smart shopping cart

Multilingual, search engine optimised

Programmed to work with First Edition.

Unlimited products.

Support for electronic, downloadable products.

Recurring subscription billings.

Unlimited Categories and sub-categories.

Bundled products and tickets.

Auctions.

Tax/Vat zone management.

Loyalty points.

Email promotion.

Database synchronization with portals.

Electronic product download support. Data Pool for license keys. Download counter; Select maximum number a file can be accessed/downloaded from the order details page, select number of days beginning from the date of the first access after which a download link will be disabled on the order details page; Download files for product variants; DRM (Digital Rights Management) support (DRMNetworks): DRM Networks provides an economical, easy-to-use, turnkey solution for the secure packaging, licensing and selling of digital media.

Media Gallery You can add an unlimited number of video-, music-, flash-, software-, image- and downloadable files, external links and links to a page in your site to each product. The user can listen to music files, watch video files, show video / audio demonstrations and images which are displayed in the integrated media player, flash player, image viewer or a custom media viewer / player and can download files. Restrict view permissions of links by user roles. Select download files for product variants.

Item based donations You can optional allow users to give as much as they want for a product, and likewise enable them to set their own price. This can be used for donations or if you .publish any items for free and want to allow your friends to pay something if they want to honor your work

Tax Zones. Calculate the tax depending on client's location and products. Specify tax rate for countries, regions, cities, ZIP match codes and products. Define Tax Zones and assign these Tax Zones to several items(Product-specific taxes). Also support for Canadian taxes as well as "Tax exempt" capability.

Calculation of freight costs item based, for first item and following items (the same or different products in the same delivery), Or charge flat rate and Offer free shipping / Free of charge if total goods price equal a certain amount. Mark products as Free Shipping.

Real time freight charges calculation depending on weight and dimensions of items.

Real-time rate calculation and package tracking with United Parcel Service (UPS) and UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE (USPS). Support for UPS negotiated rates and overweight packages.

Real-time rate calculation and tracking with United States Postal Service (USPS), Federal Express (FedEx), DHL WorldWide Express (DHL), AirBorne Express (Airborne) and Canada Post - or any combination of the above - even at the same time!

Lynx Ecommerce is a Lynx Media hosted service. Here are some of the features of our web hosting service Partner.

Three datacenters are utilized and located throughout the midwest United States located in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Missouri. The facilities and locations are free from the natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earth quakes, and power shortages that plague other datacenters throughout the world. All servers are run from these Category 5 Datacenters - which means that the datacenter can withstand a direct hit from the worst tornadoes and still operate just fine. Only the most reliable DELL servers with the fastest and redundant networks, redundant hard drives, redundant power, and dual processors. Also, the RAID1 hard drives provide a 24/7 "instant mirror" backup of your data that protects against hardware failure. If a hard drive dies, it can be replaced without rebooting the server and without interrupting your service. Dual processors, dual power supplies, and the network team allow the servers to keep running just fine in the event of any hardware failure.

150 nightly optimizations

Unlimited child portals

Easily backup and schedule auto-backup.

Dedicated Application Pool

Unlimited bandwidth

Unlimited DNS records

Unlimited Email accounts

SMPT, POP3 & Webmail

Publish Backups to remote FTP

Copper and fiber access to carrier bandwidth using cable management trays throughout building. Dual entrances into building with major carriers providing multiple CO redundancy and fiber access to primary carries

Two 3ghz Dual Core HyperThreaded XEON Processors (that's 24GHZ!) Their servers run over 24 times faster than typical servers provided by typical web hosts. Combine that with their dual-gigabit Redundant Network Team and they're really able to push data ultra-fast.

Easily add HTML articles and news right from you website. Or paste in from your editor or MS Word. No need to learn HTML to build your website.

News content management allows you to easily create, publish and archive news articles. Allow writers to submit articles and editors to approve them for publication (allow all to see)

Easily create a newsletter or email to registered users by role.

Lynx Ecommerce is fully skinable (look and feel CSS and Images) from thousands of inexpensive skins available for Dot Net Nuke.

Skins come with multiple containers that allow you to add variety to your website.

Select some or all of dozens of social bookmarks that allow your readers to share your content with their friends.

The News Tickler scroll multiple messages.

Subscriber or member-only areas or sections are easy to define by role by page or module.

A full ranges of subscription services are available for your subscribers - change the wording and order if you like.

Demographics for audits such as BPA/ABC/Verified or for marketing segmentation. Your custom demographics are setup for you by Lynx Media.

Here is the profile of a controlled subscription. Demographics are your demographics, setup for you by Lynx Media.

Your customer can easily notify you of missed or duplicate issues. Each subject in the pull-down is user defined to say anything you wish. And each subject can also have it's own email address. For example customer service sent to circ@lynxmedia.com while letters to the editor go to editor@lynxmedia.com, and so on.

Your subscribers may easily renew. And their renewal term and prices are database driven so that you can easily show prices for USA versus outside USA, Trial offer renewals, Group special prices, Edition prices (Print versus Electronic) and much more.

By clicking the edit button, a subscriber can update his or her own address. That saves your customer service a phone call and data entry time.

Each subscriber can easily edit their own ship-to address. Of course a blank ship-to simply uses the bill-to address.

Subscribers who go south for the winter (Snowbirds) can enter a temporary or permament snowbird address. Doing the snowbird date range, First Edition will substitute the snowbird address for the normal ship-to address.

Subscribers may enter or clear a vacation suspend date range.

You subscriber can easily edit their privacy settings.

Your subscriber who subscriber by a bill-me mail-in card, can pay for his subscription on your web site.

Group Billing Master is assigned their own role, allowing them to add new members to the group, edit group addresses, or renew group subscriptions.